Thus far Mr. Kendall, who writes like a candid and honest man. And what is the result of his testimony? Why, that the professions and practices, the regulations and conduct, of the Wesleyans, are now so inconsistent and so opposed, that a consistent Wesleyan teacher, who should square his conduct by his rules, and his practice by his professions, would be laughed at as a madman!! Now, this is just what we have said, that while the Wesleyan Methodists are friendly to the Church in profession, they are hostile to her in practice; and as a man is known not by his professions, but by his deeds, we are fully justified, on the authority of a Wesleyan preacher, in considering the Wesleyan Methodists as inimical to the Church. And if we are directed to the standards and documents of Wesleyanism, our reply is, in the words of Mr. Kendall, that he who should be consistent enough to act according to them, would be regarded as a madman !!

Mr. Kendall expresses himself as quite unable to determine how the Wesleyans are to get out of their difficulties without agitation and injury; but it is clear to us that they will not get out of them, even with agitation and injury. It appears to us that Churchmen will in time, and that very shortly, discover the contrast between their practices and professions, and will then withdraw themselves altogether from their meeting houses, and refuse to assist them with grants of land and money to uphold their system; and then the whole burden of the system will rest upon the hostile and bitter portion of the Wesleyans, who will rage and rave for a time, and thus cause even lukewarm Churchmen to oppose them; and, with such opposition, and their own accumulating difficulties of a pecuniary and other description, they will be despised and come to nought. Mr. Kendall evidently foresees this; for he says that the Church and the Wesleyan sect cannot long remain in their present position. "The little strifes and animosities existing occasionally (he might have said generally) in many of our small towns and villages between Church Clergymen (are there any other Clergymen ?) and Methodists, prognosticate, I fear, a rupture of no enviable description, and of no small magnitude." He then says that, "as a body," they have no "ability" to "injure the Church of England," though "the Church of England may injure them." "By virtue," he proceeds, "of that almost unlimited influence which the usages of genteel British society allow to Clergymen, they may, when they choose to set themselves against us, drain our little chapels, bribe our children from our Sabbath schools, and get our poor trustees into grievous difficulties." These words are full of wisdom and instruction to those Churchmen who have ears to hear. When the Warrenites separated from the Wesleyan Conference party, their constant cry to the people was, "Stop the supplies," knowing that to be the most effectual means of reducing an enemy to submission and quietude. And the Clergy, as Mr. Kendall intimates, have only to set themselves fairly to work in opposition to their enemies, and they will have no cause to fear them. Let us instil into the minds of all the people committed to our charge, as we are in duty bound to do as faithful servants of God, sound Church principles, pointing ont to them the Scriptural, Ancient, and Catholic nature of the Church, and her ministers and services, constantly warning them against the evils of heresy and schism, against which we pray in our incomparable Litany, and teaching them the blessings of that union and brotherly love which God has commanded; and the people will gradually leave the different sectarian preacher's, and will themselves withdraw their money; and thus will the supplies be stopped, the sinews of war shrivelled up, and the sects themselves become like the majority of the old Nonconformist conventicles, withered trunks-dead bodies, unable to commit

any further mischief. We have strong reason to believe that this would soon be the happy result, if we would exert ourselves diligently and faithfully in the discharge of our duty to God and our people, and earnestly pray to the Great Head of the Church for a blessing upon our labours.

This paper will throw some little light upon the present state of Wesleyan Methodism, considered in its relation to the Church; and, we humbly trust, be of some service to our fellow members of the Church, and induce them to keep away from Wesleyan as well as from all other dissenting meeting houses.

VILLAGE CONVERSATIONS.-No. III.

ON SCHISM AND SEPARATION.

Meanwell. I am glad to find you at home this evening, Mr. Smith, as I wish to have some further conversation with you, if you are quite at leisure.

Schoolmaster.-You wish to converse, I suppose, on the same subject which we discussed at our last interview.

Meanwell.-Yes, Sir. I have been thinking that, as God himself once caused a schism, it may not perhaps be so great a sin as it is sometimes considered.

Schoolmaster.-What do you allude to?

Mean. To the schism or division which God himself caused at Babel. Before that event men were all of one religion; but after they had been dispersed into different parts of the world, most of them lost the knowledge of God and became idolaters.

Sch. The confusion of tongues was sent as a punishment for their pride. They had begun to erect a tower, not to the honour of God, but to their own praise and glory, and God was pleased, in a remarkable way, to put a stop to the presumptuous undertaking. The consequence was, that they separated from each other, and many of them by degrees lost sight of the true religion. But this was not owing to their dispersion, but to the same cause in which schism generally originates-a disinclination to follow the good paths which God hath marked out. Each of the dispersed families had no doubt received, or had the opportunity of receiving, instruction as to the mode in which the Divine Being ought to be worshipped: and, had not pride led them to prefer their own devices, uniformity of worship would have been offered to the Almighty, though in different languages, by all the families of the earth. God cannot cause schisms in His Church. He indeed commands men to separate from idolaters (2 Cor. vi. 16, 17)—from those who try to subvert His Established Worship (Numbers, xvi. 26)— from those who add to, or take away from, His Sacred Word (Rev. xxii. 18, 19, and xviii. 4). But this is not to rend asunder (as schism does) "the living stones" of which the Church is composed; it is merely the separation from the Church of those who are not really its members. It is the removal of diseased and corrupt sheep from his fold which God commands, or rather of wolves that, under the disguise of sheep, have gained admittance into his fold. It is the winnowing of the chaff from the wheat, in order that his garner may be pure. It is the eradication of noxious weeds from his garden, that the plants which the Great Husbandman hath raised, may not be contaminated and destroyed. By such means the purity

and stability of his Church are promoted even as the removal of dead branches from the trunk conduces to the soundness and fruitfulness of the vine. But the promoters of schism, on the contrary, divide the wheat from the wheat-scatter the sheep of the pasture-pluck away the fruitful branches from the tree-separate the sound members from the body, and therefore bring on decay and dissolution.

Mean. Do you think that God very early prescribed a mode of worship from which it was unlawful to depart?

Sch. It is highly probable that He did do this immediately after the fall of man. For, as human nature then became corrupt, and utterly alienated from God, men would soon have ceased to worship their Creator, unless some special directions had been given. And when we consider the allusion to Jesus Christ contained in the promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and the offering of animals in sacrifice, which we infer from the fact that Adam and Eve were clothed in the skins of beasts; and when we call to mind that Abel's sacrifice was accepted, while Cain's was rejected, I think we have the strongest grounds for believing that God did institute a particular mode of worship.

Mean. This does not seem clear to me, although it is a very reasonable supposition.

Sch.-I do not see how the rejection of Cain's offering can be otherwise accounted for. Do you think that the mere circumstance of his offering the fruits of the earth (which it was quite natural for him, as a husbandman, to offer) would have been offensive to God, had it not been different to what had been commanded? Or can it be thought that Abel, by shedding the blood of an innocent animal, could have been more acceptable to God on any other supposition than this-that he followed the ordinance of God, believing in that Lamb which was afterwards to be sacrificed for man's transgression, and shewed his faith by his obedience? "By faith," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (c. XI,, v. 4), "Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts."

Mean.-I never considered the matter in this light before; but may not the rejection of Cain have been owing to his bad disposition, rather than to the kind of sacrifice which he offered?

Sch. As nothing is said in the Book of Genesis of the disposition of either of the parties, while the kind of sacrifice which they respectively offered is expressly stated, I cannot but think that Cain's sin was disobedience to the divine command. Abel had obeyed God's command, and, in consequence, offered " a more excellent sacrifice." And his brother was informed that if he also were obedient, or did well, he should be accepted. But he would not obey. He worshipped God, indeed, but not in the way prescribed. He would be wiser than the OMNISCIENT RULER of the universe, and he tried to improve the mode of divine worship by making a material alteration in the service; substituting the fruits of the field for that sacrifice which typified the LAMB which was to take away the sins of the world. Those fruits would have been as acceptable to God as anything else, had each been at liberty to offer what he pleased. But when no choice was allowed, the offering, which was innocent in itself, became, through disobedience, a cause of offence to God. The smallest things, and such as men are ready enough to call very pardonable offences, become grievous transgressions, when He who is the arbiter of right and wrong, declares them to be sinful. Cain might, perhaps, suppose that the alteration which he made

in the kind of offering was of no consequence; but he was miserably deceived. And he shewed great presumption and irreverence in thus, as it were, arraigning the wisdom of his CREATOR. Abel, on the contrary, no sooner heard the divine command than he obeyed. He did not reason with himself, or call in question the propriety of what God had told him to do. It was sufficient for him to know that a particular kind of sacrifice was agreeable to the divine will; and he unhesitatingly offered the victim that was required. Cain appears to have "leaned upon his own understanding;" to have reasoned in his heart, as unbelief is ever ready to do; and the result shewed, that the reason and wisdom of man are foolishness and impiety, when opposed to the Word of God. He was rejected. His offering brought upon his head the displeasure of God. And it would have been the same had he offered sacrifices ten thousand times more valuable in themselves than that of Abel; for "to obey" was always "better than sacrifice." You know what was the consequence of this beginning of schism in the first Church and first family on earth. Innovation in the prescribed mode of worship, caused the worshipper and his offering to be rejected. This rejection excited the offender's hatred against his innocent and favouredfavoured, because faithful and obedient-brother; and hatred being nourished in his heart, led him to commit the dreadful crime of murder. And how often has schism produced the same melancholy consequences! Though it may not often terminate in such heinous crimes, yet it frequently excites and keeps alive those bad passions which are the principal ingredients in the composition of murder. The common effects of schism are uncharitableness, slander, bitterness, hatred; and he who hateth his brother is a murderer "-hath already in his heart the seeds of that dreadful crime—and, were power and impunity afforded him, would probably shed the blood of his fellow-creatures.

Mean. It cannot be denied that schism is indeed productive of many sad consequences; and that more envy, jealousy, strife, and ill-will, are found where there are many different sects of religion, than in any other place.

Sch. In perusing the History of the Israelites, we shall find that people often giving way to the sin of schism, notwithstanding the many and severe judgments which God executed upon them. They deemed their own inventions better than those things which were ordained by the Almighty. When left to themselves for a few days, after Moses had gone into the Mount, they were soon tired of the regular worship of God, and never ceased from their murmurs until a golden calf had been prepared for them to worship. We may smile at their folly, or be indignant at their ingratitude to their divine BENEFACTOR; but we need not look far before we see many instances of equal infatuation. The golden calf is at present the great object to which multitudes bow the knee. Something invented by self-applauded by selfrecommended by self-this is always better, in the eyes of the conceited, the fickle, and the double-minded, than old-established institutions! It was in this spirit that NADAB and ABIHU deviated from the prescribed mode of making offerings. They must endeavour to improve the plan which God himself had instituted; and "they offered strange fire," that is, common fire, instead of fire which God himself had miraculously kindled on the altar. This presumptuous conduct was punished with death. Can schism, think you, be that venial offence which it is sometimes called, when God thus awfully manifested his displeasure against these men? And are there no Nadabs and Abihus in the present day-men who are not satisfied with the decent and scriptural mode of worship provided for them in the

Church, but are anxious to go elsewhere and offer "strange fire unto the Lord?" The zeal which many Dissenters manifest would be commendable, did it only proceed from a right spirit; but the fruits which it yields shew too clearly that it is not "rooted and grounded in love." The fire which they offer is not kindled at the altar of God's temple, and fostered by his Holy Spirit; but lighted by the torch of discord, and fanned into a consuming flame by the spirit of schism.

Mean. I was reading, a few evenings ago, the account of Korah's rebellion. The conduct of this man and his companions appears most unreasonable and wicked. They envied Moses and Aaron on account of their great influence with the people, and they endeavoured to persuade the Israelites that these holy men were full of arrogance and tyranny.

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Sch. Yes. They were wise in their generation. They knew that the multitude would readily listen to any accusations against their superiors, and be easily persuaded to be discontented with their own condition. Liberty and equality were the bait which these agitators (like certain modern demagogues) held out to the simple and ignorant people, as rights of which they had been cruelly and unjustly deprived; and many of them, being deluded by their representations, and hoping to better their condition, separated from their authorised spiritual guides, and followed these schismatical teachers. Observe the proceedings of these three rebels, and you will find how closely their example is imitated by some who cause divisions" in the Church of Christ. They accused Moses and Aaron of claiming and exercising a power to which they had no right; and they flattered the pride of the people by declaring that they were as good as their rulers, and ought not to be under their usurped dominion. "All the congregation are holy; every one of them; wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the con gregation of the Lord." (Numbers, xvi.) Compare these words with the language which is frequently employed by the promoters of schism in the present times. They try to persuade their credulous hearers that men, eminent for learning and piety, who have been raised to high offices in the CHURCH, are "lording it over God's heritage ;" or, in the words of Korah and his accomplices, taking too much upon themselves;" and they flatter their hearers into the belief (which vanity, founded on ignorance, is ever prone to entertain) that they are wiser than their teachers, and require not their instruction to guide them into the way of righteousness. Thus they excite them to revile dignities, to despise authority, and to disobey them which have the rule over them. Listening only to the suggestions of their own proud and envious hearts, they cast off all regard to the order established by Divine Providence; and they care not what confusion ensues, provided they can reduce those whom they hate and envy to the level, or, if possible, below the level, of themselves. They clamour for liberty of conscience, but would utterly deprive others of this right; and many of their proceedings would induce us to believe that their object is, liberty without conscience. The rebellion of Korah and his companions was the result of the same turbulent and discontented spirit; but they had their reward, and their history is recorded for our instruction and admonition.

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Mean-It must have been a dreadful sight to behold those men consumed by fire, and their misguided followers swallowed up by an earthquake. Surely such a judgment must have deterred other disorderly and discontented spirits from following the example of Korah.

Sch. The most severe judgments seldom make a durable impression on the minds of the proud and obstinate. And amongst the Israelites there were too many persons of this character. Hence we find that murmurs,